Utility Planet is the official blog for the column of the same name in The Spectrum Monitor. It replaces Utility World in the discontinued Monitoring Times magazine. Utilities are all VLF/LF/MF/HF (and sometimes low-band VHF) radio communications except broadcasting, CB, and non-emergency amateur. If you understood the last sentence, you know enough to read this blog.

Monday, January 31, 2011

A day or two ago, I tweeted that the US Coast Guard was making an ominous-sounding announcement at the end of its offshore weather voice schedule simulcast on NMN, Camslant Chesapeake, VA, and NMG, Commsta New Orleans. "Iron Mike," who is never the most intelligible on a good day, really stumbles over this one, plus the dates and frequencies go by way to fast to keep up on a noisy HF frequency.

Therefore, as a special service to you the utility listener, I recorded and transcribed what turned out to be two announcements, both of them very old news. Here you go:

As of 0001 Zulu, 01 August 2007, Camslant will only acknowledge or respond to Digital Selective Calling test calls to Camslant Chesapeake Virginia, call sign November Mike November, MMSI number 003669995, and New Orleans, Louisiana, call sign November Mike Golf, MMSI number 003669998, on 4207.5 kilohertz. Test calls made to Boston, Massachusetts, call sign November Mike Foxtrot, MMSI number 003669991, and Miami, Florida, call sign November Mike Alpha, MMSI number 003669997, will not be acknowledged. No other Digital Selective Calling services have changed. Break.

People in Europe are reporting radio transmissions associated with the Egyptian crisis. The ones of most interest to us are the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The MFA maintains a global network using a couple of teleprinting formats, often in an Arabic alphabet called ATU80.

This network is still active. Traffic is encrypted. A recent hit comes from Ary Boender, who got it from an anonymous listener in Europe. It used ARQ on approximately 9078.7 kHz. The message body was enrypted, but the preamble wasn't. It was clearly a diplomatic cable to Washington, DC, marked URGENT.

HF radio in general appears to be serving as a back-channel communication mode in the absence of Internet and mobile phone circuits (though these are coming back). On Friday, CW comms were reported on several 40 meter amateur frequencies. Two I recall off the top of my head are 7010 and 7076, though the latter is also a JT65A weak signal channel. I do not know if the CW was "real" or some kind of black propaganda diversionary operation.

Egypt has a secured airport that is being used by members of the upper class to flee the country. Bizjets have been heard by Allan Stern on 5517 kHz USB (their local night) and 11300 USB day. It's assumed that, since Murabak is likely holed up at his vacation home nearby, that any flight carrying him out of the country might check in here.

On the broadcast side, Gayle Van Horn has posted a Radio Cairo International schedule here. We also have a warning out from informed radio sources that a US web site purporting to be Radio Cairo is not official and should be ignored.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I was keeping this quiet because both sides of the famous "Whale Wars" dispute monitor the Internet almost as intently as the radio, looking for any information on position and course of the others. However, they have now made contact, and awareness of the existence of communication no longer gives either one useful information for location.

The "Whale Wars" are, of course, the yearly Japanese whaling expedition to the Southern Ocean every summer, and the efforts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to shut it down. This is shown every year, a few months later, on the Animal Planet TV show with this name.

About a week ago, suspicious Morse code comms were heard on 12443 kHz CW. This frequency is in the ship CW working band, but it is not an international channel. It's one kHz off from 12442.0, the ship transmitting side of a duplex pair with 9MG, Penang, on 12943.5 kHz.

These comms, however, are simplex. The ship operator sends Morse with a standard "straight key," not a "bug" or automatic keyer. Content is mostly numbers, though the people who are able to hear this have reported non-international Morse characters that could be Japanese or other languages.

One listener in New Zealand reports that he copied the words "Sea Shepard." It's not known whether the CW op misspelled it or it was a typo. He also notes that he has heard Antarctic CW activity on 12443 kHz simplex in previous Southern Hemisphere summers.

This activity coincides with reports on the Sea Shepherd web site of a series of complex tactical maneuvers ending in their intercepting the factory ship Nisshin Maru, making it impossible to process whales and bringing the Japanese whaling to at least a temporary halt.

So, have utility listeners done the seeming impossible, and heard the Nisshin or one of its associated vessels? This is not known. It could be another vessel mentioning the activity. It's sure fun to speculate, though. Did the whaling fleet think no one would check the old CW frequencies?

But, regardless of who you think is right in this yearly dispute, anything actually associated with it would be a major utility catch. Who says there's nothing on short wave?

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The most recent posting to the WebSDR site in the Netherlands shows no change in the problems getting the equipment back up and running:

Update 4 January:

Happy new year everyone!
Unfortunately, there's no news yet about our antenna connection.
Thanks for all the mails I got, expressing support and/or with tips on how to feed an antenna signal through a window that cannot be opened. Unfortunately, those tips are not usable: our only window is to the corridor, not to the outside. That is because our club room is in a part of the building that originally was only meant for storage, so no outside windows were installed.

Those of us who have had any experience with university amateur radio clubs, and the strange workings of the schools that support them, will be less amazed that a club dependent on outdoor antennas would be given a room with no access to same. Universities are like this.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

The Utility World account on twitter has been in development since around New Year's Eve. It has been linked to this blog, and so the last four "tweets" will also show here. You can go to twitter and follow Utility World by taking the link just above, or at any time by going to the bottom of the new Utility Tweets box and clicking the little birdie.

As another part of the new 2011 Utility World, the column now has yet another e-mail address. Although the old ones will still work indefinitely, this is a lot easier to remember. It's mtutilityworld [the symbol with the a inside the circle] gmail.com .

All this makes Utility World even more timely. Now it's your turn to help, by contributing. Happy New Year!

[Hugh's note: IBEC stands for International Broadband Electric Communications, Inc. Contrary to what you have been told about Broadband over Power Lines (BPL), it remains commercially viable in "underserved" rural markets where DSL and cable are not practical options. IBEC's equipment is fully certified under current FCC rules, and the company offers turnkey solutions ready for immediate deployment by any power company. Everything was supposed to be fine, but according to the ARRL, there is some trouble in paradise. Read on.]

12/29/2010

ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission documenting ongoing harmful interference and egregious rules violations by Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) systems installed by IBEC, Inc. in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. The ARRL has requested that the FCC “initiate immediately an enforcement proceeding regarding these BPL systems, and cause them to cease operation until such time as they are each in full compliance with the Commission’s Rules.”

Contrary to earlier representations to the ARRL and to statements in the online BPL database, IBEC’s systems in these locations are not universally notching the Amateur bands as is necessary in order to avoid emissions at levels that are likely to cause harmful interference to licensed Amateur Radio stations. In fact, measurements by ARRL staff and confirmed independently show that IBEC systems are not even notching the aeronautical bands that the FCC rules require BPL systems to avoid and are operating at power levels that cause radiation well in excess of the FCC limits.

The ARRL even discovered IBEC BPL systems in operation that are not listed in the online BPL database – another clear violation of the FCC rules, which require listing 30 days prior to initiation of service.